WeCutFoam Collaborates with BAM to Fabricate its Latest Exhibit BAMScape

March 17, 2010 - PRLog -- WeCutFoam has collaborated with Berkeley Art Museum and University
of California to fabricate their latest art exhibit, called BAMScape – An interactive sculpture. The Berkeley architect designing the project, Mr. Thom Faulder, calls Bamscape “ a new social nerve center” for the Berkeley Art Museum and "engine for public interaction".

The display is made of 150 individual curved modules put in the museum’s 7000 square foot central atrium to make a 1550 square feet display.
Each wavy module is 20” wide, 8’ long and about 4’ high. It is 3/8-inch thick plywood and ¼-inch plywood sides coated over an EPS foam core, then painted with a bright orange color.

Each shape was based off of drawings supplied by Mr. Faulder. WeCutFoam converted the drawings into Gcode, which served as the machine input for cutting the pieces. Each module was cut using FCX848 CNC hot wire foam cutter, made by Foamlinx. This is a heavy-duty machine designed to cut 8”x4”x8” blocks of foam. It has 8 feet effective cutting on the X-axis (Horizontal), 4 feet effective cutting on the Y-axis (vertical) and 9 feet wire length.

Next step in the process was to coat each module foam core with plywood using water-based contact cement. Then the gaps were filled using Bondo and the plywood was smoothed and sanded. Later, the joints were sealed and primer was applied. As a last step in the fabrication process each unit was coated with a bright orange paint.
All modules were shipped to Berkley Art Museum where the pieces were installed together on site.

The final display is a curved elevated shape of modules fastened together where visitors can climb, sit on, chat, study, play, relax and interact with art.
Here is an article about the exhibit in the Daily California newspaper: http://www.dailycal.org/article/108026/
Here is what Larry Rinder, Director of BAM has to say about the exhibit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQKahJYeNik


Project fabrication step-by-step:
http://berkeley-art-museum.blogspot.com/2010/02/bam-proje...

WeCutFoam also fabricated recently a complex project for Raytheon. It is a hexagon shape made of XPS for foam prototyping of a project they are working on. Raytheon used the foam shape as a testing stage prior to moving on to production. The full-scale prototype is a 14ft x 3ft 3-D shape made of 12 pieces assembled together. The XPS foam was then coated and finished using polyurethane coating.

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About WeCutFoam: Our company is a family owned and operated business, located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, California. We specialize in customized cutting shapes out of almost any type of foam. Our machines cut foam, light metals, wood, plastics. We mostly cut signs, letters, logos, architectural shapes, prototyping, crown molding and wings. We also machine EPS, cut Plexiglas, Polyurethane and EVA foam. Our machines include laser cutters, hot wire foam cutters, and CNC routers – up to 20’ x 10’ x 8’. With our machines we can make full-scale 3D shapes and props, up to 20’ long.